RHEL 7 offers another utility to configure and display date and time information, timedatectl. This utility is part of the systemd system and service manager. With the timedatectl command you can :
- Change the current date and time
- Set the time zone
- Configure NTP
If you run timedatectl without any options, you would get an output similar to below :
# timedatectl
Local time: Sun 2017-09-24 13:16:39 IST
Universal time: Sun 2017-09-24 07:46:39 UTC
RTC time: Sun 2017-09-24 07:46:39
Time zone: Asia/Kolkata (IST, +0530)
NTP enabled: no
NTP synchronized: yes
RTC in local TZ: no
DST active: n/a
The above output shows – local time, universal time, RTC time, time zone, NTP configuration and Daylight Savings Time (DST)
Change the current date and time
Use the set-time argument to change the current date and the current time.
1. To change the date, use the following syntax:
# timedatectl set-time [YYYY-MM-DD]
2. To change the current time, use the following syntax. Enter the hour by using a 24-hour clock.
# timedatectl set-time [HH:MM:SS]
3. To configure your system to maintain the clock in the local time, use the following command:
# timedatectl set-local-rtc yes
4. To configure your system to use UTC, use the following command:
# timedatectl set-local-rtc no
Change Time Zone
Use the following command to list all available time zones:
# timedatectl list-timezones Africa/Abidjan Africa/Accra Africa/Addis_Ababa Africa/Algiers Africa/Asmara Africa/Bamako .....
Use the set-timezone argument to change the time zone. The following example changes the time zone to Asia/Kolkata:
# timedatectl set-timezone Asia/Kolkata
Configuring NTP
Use the set-ntp argument to enable or disable automatic synchronization of your system clock with a remote server over the Network Time Protocol (NTP). Use the following command to enable this feature:
# timedatectl set-ntp yes
Use the following command to disable this automatic synchronization over NTP:
# timedatectl set-ntp no